The Dragon's Dagger

By R. A. Salvatore

The reluctant hero of The Woods Out Back is needed again in the realm of Faerie, in this fantasy adventure by the New York Times–bestselling author.

Gary Leger returned from the magical realm of Faerie five years ago, and each day since, he has longed to embark on more adventures. Now a mob of pixies is about to grant his wish.

For the inhabitants of Faerie, it’s only been a month since Gary left, and life is not great. A vile king sits on the throne, threatening war. An evil witch imprisoned on an island struggles to free herself. And a dragon is burning the countryside. It’s up to Gary and his friends—Mickey the leprechaun, Kelsey the elf, and Geno the dwarf—to get Gary back to where he belongs before Faerie is blackened to a crisp . . .

Praise for The Dragon’s Dagger

“Gary has a lively time of it in Faerie, which Salvatore recaptures with verve and wit and many nice touches. . . . A classic tale of humans caught in the toils of Faerie, certain to retain its predecessor’s audience.” —Booklist

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Feb 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781504080521

R. A. Salvatore

Over three decades ago, R. A. Salvatore created the character of Drizzt Do’Urden, the dark elf who has withstood the test of time to stand today as an icon in the fantasy genre. With his work in the Forgotten Realms, the Crimson Shadow, the DemonWars Saga, and other series, Salvatore has sold more than thirty-five million books worldwide and has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list more than two dozen times. He considers writing to be his personal journey, but still, he’s quite pleased that so many are walking the road beside him! R.A. lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Diane, and their dog, Pikel. He still plays softball for his team, Clan Battlehammer, and enjoys his weekly DemonWars: Reformation RPG and Dungeons & Dragons 5e games. 

Book preview

Prelude

Kelsey the elf ran his slender fingers through his shoulder-length, pure golden hair many times, his equally golden eyes unblinking as he stared at the empty pedestal in Dilnamarra Keep.

The empty pedestal!

Only a month before, Kelsey had returned the armor and reforged spear of Cedric Donigarten, Faerie’s greatest hero, to this very spot. What pains the elf had gone through to repair that long-broken spear! The reforging had been Kelsey’s life quest, the greatest trial for any member of Tylwyth Teg, the fair elven folk of the Forest Tir na n’Og. Kelsey still carried the wounds of his challenge against mighty Robert, the dreaded dragon, the only creature in all the land who could billow fire hot enough to bind the magical metal of that legendary weapon.

And now, with word just beginning to spread throughout the countryside that the spear was whole once more, the mighty weapon and the fabulous armor were simply gone.

Baron Pwyll entered his throne room through a door at the back of the hall, escorted by several worried-looking soldiers. Nearly a foot taller than Kelsey and easily twice the elf’s weight, the big man, gray beard flying wild (Kelsey knew that the Baron had been pulling at it, as was his habit when he was upset), ambled to his seat and plopped down, seeming to deflate and meld with the cushions.

Do you know anything? he asked Kelsey, his normally booming voice subdued.

I know that the items, the items which I placed in your care, are missing, Kelsey snapped back. A hint of anger flashed in Pwyll’s brown eyes, his droopy eyelids rising up dangerously. He did not immediately reply, though, and that fact made Kelsey even more fearful that something dreadful had happened, or was about to happen.

What is it? the elf prompted, instinctively understanding that the Baron was withholding some important news.

Geldion is on his way from Connacht, Pwyll replied, referring to the upstart Prince of Faerie, by Kelsey’s estimation the most dangerous man in all the land. With a score of soldiers, a knight included, at his side, Pwyll finished.

Geldion could not have already heard that the items are missing, Kelsey reasoned.

No, Pwyll agreed. But he, and his father—long live the King—Pwyll added quickly, and glanced around to see if any of his own men was wearing a suspicious expression—have heard that the spear was reforged. It seems that Kinn … King Kinnemore has decreed that the treasure rooms of Connacht would serve better as a shrine for so valuable an artifact.

Cedric Donigarten’s own will bequeathed the items to Dilnamarra, Kelsey protested, against Pwyll’s dismissing wave. You have the documents, legally signed and sealed. Kinnemore cannot …

I do not fear the legal battle about the placement of the items, Pwyll interrupted. The Baron grabbed at his beard and tugged hard, leaving a kinky gray strand hanging far out to the side of his huge face. King Kinnemore, even that wretched Geldion, would tread with care before removing the spear, or the armor. But do you not understand? I thought that they had already stolen it, and the fact that Geldion is only now on his way, fully announced, confuses the facts.

A cover for the theft? Kelsey reasoned.

Do you believe Geldion to be that clever? Baron Pwyll replied dryly.

Kelsey sent his graceful hands through his golden hair once more, turned his questioning gaze to the empty pedestal. If not Kinnemore, than who might have taken the items? the elf wondered. Robert had been defeated, banished by unyielding rules of challenge to remain in his castle for a hundred years. Similarly, the witch Ceridwen had been banished to her island, defeated by the reforged spear itself. No doubt, the conniving witch could still cause havoc, but Kelsey did not think that Ceridwen had had time yet to muster her forces—unless she was working through her puppet king in Connacht.

A clamor by the main door, several groans and the sound of someone spitting, turned Kelsey around. Five soldiers entered, bearing a short and stout character, tied—ankles and wrists, knees and elbows, and neck and waist—to two heavy wooden poles. The dwarf—for it was, of course, a dwarf, though he did not wear the beard typical of his folk—twisted stubbornly every step of the way, forcing his head to the side so that he could line up another man for a stream of gravelly spit.

None of the soldiers seemed overly pleased, and all of them carried more than a few hammer-sized dents in their metal armor.

My Baron, one of them began, but he stopped abruptly as a wad of spit slapped against the side of his face. He turned and raised his fist threateningly at the dwarf, who smiled an impish smile and spat another stream into the man’s eye.

Cut him down! the frustrated Baron cried.

Yes, my Baron! one of the soldiers eagerly responded, snapping his great sword from its sheath. He turned on the dwarf and brought the weapon up high, lining up the bound prisoner’s exposed head, but suddenly Kelsey was between him and his target, the elf’s slender sword at the soldier’s throat.

I believe that your Baron meant for you to free the dwarf, the elf explained. The soldier looked at Pwyll, a horrified expression on his face, then blushed and slid his weapon away.

We cannot free him, my Baron, said the first soldier as he continued to wipe his face. I fear for your safety.

There are five armed soldiers around the damned dwarf! Pwyll replied, tugging at his beard.

The soldier gave the dangerous prisoner a sidelong glance.

And there were twenty in Braemar! the dwarf bellowed. So do let me down, I beg.

Pwyll’s big face screwed up as he regarded his troops. He had indeed sent a score of soldiers to the town of Braemar in search of Geno Hammerthrower.

The others will return to Dilnamarra after their wounds have healed enough to permit travel, the soldier admitted.

Pwyll looked to Kelsey, who turned about and promptly sliced the thongs holding Geno to the pole. Down crashed the dwarf, but he bounced back to his feet immediately and slapped a fist into his open palm.

I was not among the score of men you battled in Braemar, Kelsey quickly and grimly reminded Geno. You will cause no further ruckus in Dilnamarra Keep.

Geno held the elf’s unyielding stare for a long while, then shrugged, pushed his straight brown hair back from his rough-hewn but strangely cherubic face, and smiled that mischievous grin once more. Then give me back my hammers, he said.

Kelsey nodded to one of the soldiers, who immediately put his hand on a bandolier lined with a dozen heavy hammers. The man retracted the hand at once, though, and looked from smiling Geno to Baron Pwyll.

Do it! Kelsey demanded before the Baron could respond, and so great was the respect carried by the Tylwyth Teg that the soldier had the bandolier off his shoulder and over to Geno in an instant.

Geno pulled a hammer from the wide strap and sent it spinning up into the air. He casually draped the strap over one shoulder, then put his thick hand out at precisely the right moment to catch the descending hammer.

My thanks, elf, the dwarf said. But do not presume this capture to mean I owe you anything. You know the rules of indenture as well as I, and twenty against one doesn’t make for a fair catch.

You were not brought back for any indenture, Kelsey explained, and Geno, despite his taciturn façade, let out a profound sigh of relief. The dwarf was reputably the finest smithy in all the land of Faerie, and as such, was almost constantly fending off capture attempts from Barons or wealthy merchants, or simply upstart would-be heroes, all wanting him to craft the finest weapon in the world.

The armor and spear are missing, Baron Pwyll added rather sharply, leaning forward in his chair as though he had just placed an accusation at the dwarf’s feet. The blustery man backed off on his imposing stance immediately, though, when Geno’s scowl returned tenfold.

Are you accusing me of taking them? the dwarf asked bluntly.

No, no, Kelsey quickly put in, fearing one of Geno’s volatile explosions. It occurred to the elf for a fleeting instant that his gesture of trust to the dangerous dwarf by giving him back his hammer supply might not have been such a wise thing. We are merely investigating the matter, he went on calmly. We thought that you, as the smithy who reforged the spear, should be alerted.

We are simply trying to solve a mystery here, Pwyll said calmly, wise enough to understand the prudence of following Kelsey’s lead. You most certainly are not suspected of any wrongdoing. The statement wasn’t exactly true, but Pwyll thought it an important diplomatic move, one that might keep a hurled hammer off his head.

Your men could have asked, Geno said to Pwyll.

We did … the spit-covered soldier started to respond, but Pwyll’s upraised hand and Geno’s sudden grip on his nearest hammer shut the man up.

Also, rest assured that you will be richly compensated for your assistance in this most important matter, the blustery Baron went on, trying to sound official.

Geno looked around doubtfully at the rather shabby dressings of the room. It was no secret in Faerie that since Kinnemore had become King, the wealth of the independent Baronies, particularly those such as Dilnamarra who did not play as puppets to Connacht, had greatly diminished. Are the Tylwyth Teg paying? Geno asked Kelsey, and the elf nodded gravely.

Baron Pwyll winced at the subtle insult. Where is the giant? he asked, referring to Tommy One-Thumb, the giant who had reportedly accompanied Kelsey and Geno on their quest to reforge the spear.

You think I’d be fool enough to walk a giant into Dilnamarra Keep? Geno balked. How’d you ever get to be a Baron?

Kelsey faded out of the conversation at that point, falling back into private contemplations of the unsettling events. Despite the impending arrival of Prince Geldion, he still suspected that King Kinnemore, on orders from wicked Ceridwen, was somehow behind the theft. The dragon Robert’s hand was not as long as Ceridwen’s, after all, and who else might have precipitated …

Kelsey’s musings suddenly hit an unexpected wall and shot off in a different direction altogether, a direction that indicated that this theft might be more mischief and less malice. Who else, indeed?

Mickey McMickey shifted his tam-o’-shanter and rested back easily against a tree trunk at the edge of a glade in the beautiful forest of Tir na n’Og. The leprechaun soon resumed his twiddling with a dagger that Gary Leger, the man from the other world, had inadvertently taken from the lair of Robert. Because of this dagger, because the companions had broken their agreement to the rules of challenge, the dragon’s vow of banishment would not hold up to scrutiny.

Mickey’s thoughts drifted to his precious pot of gold, bartered to Robert before the leprechaun had ever entered the dragon’s lair. How dearly he missed it, and how weak his magical powers had become with the gold lost!

Not to worry, the usually cheerful fellow said to himself. He looked over his shoulder, to the gorgeous artifacts, the armor and spear of Cedric Donigarten. This’ll bring ’em running.

ONE

Smart Bombs and M&Ms

Fiscal month end. Fun time for the finance group at General Components Corporation, a high-tech, high-pressure supplier for the giants of the computer industry. Gary Leger put a hand behind his sore neck and stretched way back in his chair, the first time he had been more than a foot from his terminal screen in over two hours. He looked around at the other cubicles in the common office and saw that everyone else had already gone to afternoon break, then looked up at the clock and realized that they would be back any minute.

Gary let out a profound sigh. He wanted a Coke, could really use the caffeine, but it was already three-thirty, and Rick needed this field service summary report finished before the management meeting at five. Gary looked back to the computer screen, and to the pile of notes—revenue plans, revenue forecasts, and actual monthly figures—sitting beside the terminal. He had to input the data for three more offices, a hundred numbers for each over two pages, then hit the space bar and hope everything added up correctly on the totals page.

Gary hated the data entry part of it, wished that Rick would fish out a few bucks from the budget to get him an assistant just one day a month. He loved the totaling, though, and the inevitable investigations that would follow, tracking down missing revenues and delinquent credits. Gary chuckled softly as he thought of the many television shows he had seen depicting accountants as wormy, boring individuals. Gary, too, had believed the stereotype—it had seemed to fit—until, following the trail of bigger bucks, he had inadvertently stumbled into a position as an accountant. His first month-end closing, filled with the seemingly impossible task of making the numbers fit into seemingly impossible places, had changed Gary’s perception, had thrown the image of the job as boring right out the office window.

You look tired, came Rick’s voice from behind.

Almost done, Gary promised without even looking over his shoulder. He stretched again and pulled the next office sheet off the pile.

Did you get a break? Rick asked, coming over and dropping a hand on Gary’s shoulder, bending low to peer at the progress on the computer screen.

At lunch.

Go get one, said Rick, taking the paper from Gary’s hand. He pushed Gary from his seat and slid into the chair. And take your time.

Gary stood for a moment, looking doubtful. He wasn’t one to dole out his work, was a perfectionist who liked to watch over the whole procedure from beginning to end.

I think I can handle it, Rick remarked dryly over one shoulder, and Gary winced at the notion that he was so damned predictable. When he thought about Rick’s answer to his doubts, he felt even more foolish. Rick, after all, had been the one who created this spreadsheet.

Get going if you want a break, Rick said quietly.

Gary nodded and was off, crossing by his associates as they were coming back from the break room. Their talk, predictably, was on the war, detailing the latest bombing runs over the Arab capital, and describing how the enemy was hunkering down, as the popular phrase went.

Gary just smiled as he passed them, exchanged friendly shoulder-punches with Tom, the cost accountant, and made his way quickly to the break room. Rick had told him to take his time, and Gary knew that Rick, always concerned for his employees, had meant every word. But Gary knew, too, that the report was his responsibility, and he meant to get it done.

Someone had brought a television into the break room, turned always to CNN and the continuing war coverage. A group was around the screen when Gary entered—hell, he thought, a group was always around the screen—watching the latest briefing, this one by the French commanders of the U.N. forces. Gary tried to phase it all out as the reporters assaulted the commanders with their typically stupid questions, most asking when the ground assault would begin.

Of course, they’ll tell you the exact time, Gary thought sarcastically. Never mind that the enemy command was also tuned to CNN’s continuing coverage.

Gary lucked out: it only took five quarters to coax a seventy-five-cent Coke out of the battered vending machine. He moved to a table far to the side of the TV screen and pulled up a chair. He took a pair of hand-grips from one pocket and began to squeeze, nodded admiringly at the ripples in his muscular forearm. Gary had always been in good shape, always been an athlete, but ever since his unexpected trip to the land of Faerie, he took working out much more seriously. In the land of dragons and leprechauns, Gary Leger had worn the armor and carried the weapon of an ancient hero, had battled goblins and trolls, even a dragon and an evil witch. He expected that he would go back to that enchanted land one day, wanted to go back dearly, and was determined that if the situation ever arose, his body at least would be ready for the challenge.

Yes, Gary Leger would like to go back to Faerie, and he would like to take Diane with him. Gary smiled at the notion of him and Diane sprinting across the thick grass of the rolling, boulder-strewn fields, possibly with a host of drooling goblins on their heels. The goblins would get close, but they wouldn’t get the pair, Gary believed, not with friends like noble Kelsey and tricky Mickey McMickey on Gary’s side.

The image of Faerie waned, leaving Gary to his more tangible thoughts of Diane. He had been dating her for only three months, but he was pretty sure that this was the woman he would eventually marry. That thought scared Gary more than a little, simply because of the anticipated permanence of the arrangement in a world where nothing seemed permanent.

He loved her, though. He knew that in his heart, and he could only hope that things would work out in their own, meandering course.

A couple of MIS guys, computer-heads, infiltrated the table next to Gary, one asking if he could borrow a chair from Gary’s table, since most of the other chairs in the room had been dragged near to the TV screen.

Friggin’ war, one of them remarked, catching Gary’s attention. We’re only fighting it so we don’t realize how bad the economy’s getting. Wave the flag and drop it over the balance sheet.

No kidding, agreed the other. They’re talking layoffs at the end of Q3 if the Sporand deal doesn’t go through.

Everybody’s laying off, said the first guy.

Gary phased out of the bleak conversation. It was true enough. The Baby Boomers, the Yuppies, seemed to have hit a wall. Credit had finally caught up to cash flow, and Gary constantly heard the complaints—usually from spoiled adults whining that their payments on their brand-new thirty-thousand-dollar car were too steep.

In spite of the few with no reason to complain, there was a general pall over the land, and rightly so. So many people were homeless, so many others living in substandard conditions. The gloom went even deeper than that, Gary Leger, the man who had visited the magical land of Faerie, knew well. The material generation had fallen off the edge of a spiritual rift; Gary’s world had become one where nothing valid existed unless you could hold it in your hand.

Even the flag—drape it over the balance sheet—had become caught up in the turmoil, Gary noted with more than a little anger. The President had called for an amendment to the Constitution outlawing flag burning, because, apparently, that tangible symbol had become more important than the ideals it supposedly symbolized. What scared Gary even more was how many people agreed with the shallow thought, how many people couldn’t understand that putting restrictions on a symbol of freedom lessened the symbol rather than protected it.

Gary shook the thought away, filed it in his certainly soon to be ulcerous stomach along with a million other frustrations.

At least his personal situation was better. He had to believe that. He had come out of the dirty plastics factory into a respectable job earning twice the money and offering him a chance to use more talents than his muscles on a day-to-day basis. He had a steady girlfriend whom he cared for deeply—whom he loved, though he still had trouble admitting that to himself. So everything was fine, was perfect, for Gary Leger.

A burst of laughter from the gathering turned Gary to the television just in time to see a truck, in the gunsights of a low-flying jet, race off a bridge an instant before a smart bomb blew the bridge into tiny pieces. The technology was indeed amazing, kind of like a Nintendo game.

That thought, too, bothered Gary Leger more than a little.

He got caught up in the images as the press briefing continued, a French officer pointing to the screen and talking of the importance of this next target, a bunker. A tiny figure raced across the black-and-white image, entering the bunker a split-second before the smart bomb did its deadly work, reducing the place to rubble.

Poor man, the French officer said to a chorus of groans, both from the reporters at the press briefing and from the gathering around the TV at General Components.

Poor man? Gary whispered incredulously. It wasn’t that Gary held no pity for the obviously killed enemy soldier. He held plenty, for that man and for everyone else who was suffering in that desert mess. It just seemed so absolutely ridiculous to him that the French officer, the reporters, and the gathering around the screen seemed so remorseful, even surprised, that a human being had been killed.

Did they really think that this whole thing was a damned Nintendo game?

Gary scooped up his Coke and left the break room, shaking his head with every step. He thought of his mother, and her newest favorite cliché, What’s this world coming to?

How very appropriate that sounded now to Gary Leger, full of frustrations he didn’t understand, searching for something spiritual that seemed so out of reach and out of place.

Nestled in a mountain valley at the northeastern end of the mighty Dvergamal Mountains, the gnomish settlement of Gondabuggan was a normally peaceful place, lined with square stone shops filled with the most marvelous, if usually useless, inventions. Half the town was underground in smoothed-out burrows, the other half in squat buildings, more than half of which served as libraries or places of study. Peaceful and inquisitive; those were the two words which the gnomes themselves both considered the highest of compliments.

The Gondabuggan gnomes were far from the protection of Faerie’s official militia, though, and far even from the help of the reclusive dwarfs who lived within the mountains. They had survived for centuries out here in the wild lands, and though certainly not warlike, they were not a helpless group.

Huge metallic umbrellas were now cranked up from every building, popping wide their deflective sheets and covering the whole of the gnomish town under a curtain of shining metal. Beneath the veil, great engines began turning, drawing water through a score of wide pipes from the nearby river and sending it shooting up into the air.

The dragon roared past, his flaming breath turning to steam as it crossed the spray and hit the wetted sheets of the umbrellas. Robert the mighty was not dismayed. He banked in a wide turn, confident that he could continue his fires long after the river itself had been emptied.

One of the umbrellas near to the center of the small, square town detracted suddenly and as Robert veered for that apparent opening, he heard the whoosh! of three catapults. The dragon didn’t understand; the gnomes in that area couldn’t even see him, so what were they shooting for?

Almost immediately, the umbrella snapped back into place, completing the shield once more.

Robert figured out the catapult mystery as he crossed through the area above that shield, as he crossed through the tiny bits of stinging metal chips the catapults had flung straight up into the air. Flakes ricocheted off the dragon’s scales, stung his eyes, and melted in the heated areas of his flaring nostrils.

Curses on the gnomes! Robert roared, and his deadly breath spewed forth again. Those areas of metal shielding that were not sufficiently wetted glowed fiercely, and all the valley on the northeastern corner of Dvergamal filled with a thick veil of steam.

Robert heard several umbrellas retract, heard the sound of many catapults firing, and felt the sting of hanging metal all the way as he soared across the expanse above the protected town. The great wyrm banked again, arcing high and wide for several minutes, and then turned in a stoop, just a black speck on the misty southern horizon, but flying fast.

Pedal! Oh, pedal, pedal, pedal! Mugwiggen the gnome implored his Physical Assault Defense Team. A hundred gnomes on stationary bikes pumped their little legs furiously, their breath popping out in rhythmic huffs and puffs from the thin line of their mouths under their fully bearded faces. Sweat rolled down a hundred high-browed, gnomish foreheads, down a hundred long and pointy gnomish noses, to drip in widening puddles at the base of the spinning wheels.

Mugwiggen peered into his highlooker, a long upright tube, hooked horizontally on each end, that could be rotated in complete circles. At the opposite end of the horizontal eyepiece was an angled reflective sheet, catching the images from a similar sheet near the top of the tube, that first caught the images from the horizontal top-piece. This gnomish periscope also featured several slots wherein magnifying lenses could be inserted, but Mugwiggen needed no amplification now, not with the specter of the dragon fast growing on the horizon.

The gnome took a reading on the exact angle of his scope, then looked to a chart to determine which umbrella soaring Robert would likely hit.

Fourteen D, the gnome barked to his assistant, a younger gnome whose beard barely reached his neck.

Wearing heavy gloves molded from the thick sap of the Pweth Pweth trees, the assistant lifted the end of the charged coil, connected by metal lines to resistors on the wheels of the hundred bikes, and moved in front of the appropriate slot in a switch box hooked to every umbrella in the city.

Fourteen D! Mugwiggen yelled into a tube, and his words echoed out of similar tubes in every corner of Gondabuggan, and warned those gnomes in section fourteen D (and those in thirteen D and fifteen D, as well), that they would be wise to get out of harm’s way. Then the gnome went back to his scope, alternately eyeing charts that would allow him to predict the air speed of the soaring dragon, and the timing of the collision.

Robert swooped down over the southern edge of the compact town, narrowed his reptilian eyes to evil slits against the continuing sting of the flak. Like a great ballista bolt, the dragon did not swerve, dove unerringly for the targeted umbrella, which the gnomes had labeled fourteen D.

Threetwoone! Mugwiggen cried rapidly, seeing that his calculations were a split-second slow. His assistant was quick on the draw, though, immediately plugging the end of the coil into the appropriate slot in the switch box.

Metal sheets folded upward as the dragon smashed in, encasing Robert. The mighty wyrm wasn’t immediately concerned, knowing he could easily rip his way through the flimsy barrier, shred the metal to harmless slivers.

But confident Robert didn’t see the arcing current shoot up the umbrella pole, though he certainly felt the jolt as the charge fanned out along the encasing metal sheets.

Those gnomes nearest to fourteen D were deafened, some permanently, by the dragon’s ensuing roar. Loose rocks in the Dvergamal Mountain range a mile away trembled at the vibrations of the titanic sound.

A hundred sweating gnomes pedaled furiously, keeping the charge steady and strong, and thrashing Robert’s nostrils filled with acrid smoke as his leathery wings began to smolder.

Another roar, a crash of metal sheeting, and the dragon burst free, was hurled free, spinning into the air, trailing lines of smoke from every tip of his reptilian body. Two hundred feet up, Robert righted himself, spun right back around and loosed his flaming fury on the breached section of Gondabuggan’s umbrella shielding.

Many hoses had already been turned on the vulnerable area, and the steam was blinding, but the town wouldn’t escape unscathed. Fires flared to life in several buildings; metal turned to liquid and rolled down the gnomish streets.

Which one? Mugwiggen’s assistant asked him, holding the loose coil once more.

Mugwiggen shook his head in frustration. I cannot see for the steam! the gnome cried in dismay, and he thought that his precious town was surely doomed.

Free fire! came the gnomish Mayor’s command over the calling tubes. Immediately there came the sound of an umbrella snapping shut, followed by the whoosh! of a catapult. A loud thonk! thrummed over the network of open horns as a ballista sent a bolt the size of a giant’s spear arcing into the air.

Reviews for The Dragon's Dagger

[karlstar_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Gary wants to return to the land of faerie, and he gets his wish. However, once he gets there he finds out he has to take on a new, even more dangerous quest. For Salvatore fans, this is a good sample of his work.

[coffeesucker · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Decent...that's about all I can say.